I think we are all procrastinators to some degree...tomorrow....we will do the right things and then tomorrow we say...well tomorrow again!!! It is tough being a grown up and we do have to take responsibility for our own actions....because we know if we don't we are not going to be successful on this journey! Speaking of walking - think it is time for me to get up and go on a walk! Barb

I'm going to start logging my food again. I need to begin eating 100 grams of protein each day on October 18th to prepare for surgery. I'm not sure what that means so I'm going back to FitDay to log everything I eat. It will give me a better idea of how I need to shift my food around to accommodate the increase in protein. I've been putting it off, but today is the day! Thanks for the coaching! Hugs, Stephanie

Thank you Robin! How are you doing since your surgery? Hope you are doing and feeling great. Can't wait to see pics of the "new you"

Hi Ruth Ann. First off, here's a big HUG for you. I want you to know that you are not alone in this at all. These feelings you are experiencing are also being experienced by others. Me included. There are two things that I am working on in my life right now. Neither of them have anything to do with the scale or food. The first is learning to be nice to myself. I certainly didn't know how to do that at 350 pounds. Just because I've lost 140 or so, doesn't mean that I know how to do it now. I see a therapist once a month to help me deal with some of these issues. I would see her more often, but my insurance will not pay for it (I'm too functional they say!) so I can only afford once a month. She has taught me to verbalize the good things about myself while looking in the mirror. It sounds silly, but it has helped. I look at myself in a full length mirror and instead of noticing all of the sagging skin or my thick thighs, I concentrate on other things. I'll say, "My eyes are a pretty shade of green or blue depending on what I am wearing" or "I like my shoulders". The first few times those were the only two things I could come up with. I just kept at it and now I have a few more things I've found that I like about my physical self. I also throw in a few internal things once in a while such as "I'm a good friend" or "I take good care of my husband". I force myself to describe at least two physical attributes each time. The other thing I am working on is this notion of balance. I too am in school, work a demanding full-time job and trying to exercise. How on earth am I supposed to manage all of that AND have a meaningful relationship with my husband and fulfill other family obligations???? It's so hard! I've been at this for a long time too. So you'd think I would have figured it out by now. But I haven't. Especially the exercise component. During the summer, it was easy. I wasn't taking classes and didn't have that nightly homework committment plus it was slower at work. I could easily get up at 5:30 a.m. to fit in my exercise. Now, it's much more difficult. (FYI - most Sunday nights you'll find me at my computer finishing whatever is due by midnight. I think that's very normal when you work and go to school!) How do I balance all of this stuff? Exercise is usually the first thing to go. Here it is Wednesday and I went to my spinning class last night. That's it for the week so far. Not one minute at the gym yet. And, if I'm honest I probably won't make it this week. I have a paper and a midterm due by Sunday night along with the usual homework. So, am I a failure this week? I doubt that anyone would label me as such. I'm the only one who would do that. Am I a success because I will participate in two spinning classes this week? Yup! Would it have been great to be able to hit the gym four or five times in addition to the spinning? Absolutely. But it didn't happen this week (or last week for that matter). I have to find a place in my life for all of these things. No doubt about it, it's tough. The important thing for me to remember is that I don't have to be perfect at any one thing. I don't have to eat perfectly all week. I don't have to exercise five times in a week. I don't have to read every word of each textbook. It's okay if my husband makes his own lunch one morning because I just can't drag my butt out of bed at 5:00 a.m. when I was up until 11:00 p.m. working on homework. None of those things mean I'm a failure. You're not a failure either. Ruth Ann, you don't have anything to be ashamed of. None of us are ashamed by you even a tiny, tiny bit. Rather, we are proud of you! Proud of the weight loss, proud of the life transformation and proud of the human being that you are. You can be, and are, that person everyone else thinks you are. But, you don't have be that person every second of the day. I know it's impossible for me! I'm fallible, but not a failure! Anyhow, I hope this helps a little. I'm right there with you struggling. I think it's okay to struggle. If I stop trying to find that balance or if I give up trying to lose these last 30 pounds, then I might fail. As long as I'm trying, I'm not failing. Some days, I repeat that to myself every five minutes! Big hugs, Stephanie

Hi Ruth Ann, Your honesty is very courageous. You are not at all alone in how you are feeling and what you are doing. I too am confessing to you that I have not at all been making the right choices. My food choices are horrible. I am probably eating 2000 calories a day with all the snacking I do. I haven't checked my calorie intake because I am sure it is going to be outrageous and I'll probably want to cry. I haven't been to the gym in almost 3 months. Sure I had plastic surgery but I could have started back on the treadmill or bike weeks ago. I just don't go because I want to do other things, like sit on my butt in the sun and read a book. When I go grocery shopping I buy all kinds of fresh fruit & veggies. Then two weeks later I am tossing out all of the rotten produce because I haven't eaten any of it. Why? I am busy stuffing my face with crackers, sweet n salty bars, cookies, Dibs ice cream, chocolate and sour patch kids candy! It's crazy. I know this stuff is bad for me. I rarely dump anymore because I have forced my body to get used to this stuff again by eating it all the time. I have even eaten white bread twice in the past month and had pasta twice. I would not have even dared take a bit of white bread or pasta a month or more ago!!! My daughter made brownies for school last night. I had a teeny tiny square and should have been satisified with that but then I went back and started picking at all the little pieces left over. I commented how I wish I couldn't eat this stuff like it was in the beginning and my daughter said, so mom just stop eating it. What kind of example am I setting for them! I come home from work and I eat a snack while I am cooking dinner, usually some crackers or a bite size candy bar. Then I eat dinner or if I am too full from my snack I skip the healthy meal I just fixed and later on I eat more snack type, un-healthy or at the very least not the best choices snacks. Usually I eat something sweet and then I want to eat something salty like crackers or chips. Its a vicious cycle. I have been here before and I hate that I have let myself get back here again. I tell myself every day that today I am going to not snack so much and I am going to not eat a cookie from work or a piece of cake from so and so's birthday celebration. And yet every day I DO eat that cookie or cake. I take really small pieces and I usually take an hour to eat one of the large bakery cookies. Still, that doesn't make it okay that I am eating this stuff. I am afraid that I will start to see the scale go back up and I won't be able to bring it back down. I don't want to ruin this. I am the first to admit that the first 50 lbs were easy to get off, I didn't eat because I felt awful and sick all the time which was awful to feel that way but the weight loss was easy then. Then when I started to feel better and could eat more variety, I began to have to really work at staying in control and making the right choices. I have worked too hard and gone through too much to give it all up for the taste of some food that is going to make me feel yucky physically and emotionally. Yet I keep doing it. One thing I am going to tell you and in doing so tell myself is that we are being VERY hard on ourselves. I think that we are living normal lives, eating, working, being busy and striving to hold things together in this ever more quickly moving world of ours. At some point our eating becomes very normal feeling as well. Only I think for us, normal is scary because we (at least I do) feel that eating 2-4 ounces of food 3-4 times a day is what should be normal for us. Maybe that isn't what will sustain us. I know we (you & I) have made poor food choices but at the same time it is probably very unrealisitic to believe that we should not be able to eat more than two crackers at a time. "Success is getting up once oftener than you fall down." Keep getting back up, keep trying, keep paying attention and counting calories and planning meals. You have to keep at it. I also think you need to try & find something to help you to relax when you have a few minutes of down time. You are very, very busy and under stress. Try to take a short stoll in the evening or at lunch. Don't think about how you didn't get to work out for an hour today. Begin with just a 5 minute walk around the block. Take an hour to get your nails done or to read a good book or look through a magazine. If you don't de-stress somehow you will burn out very quickly. You have been blessed, with weight loss, a great job, the opportunity to get your degree and move up in the world of work. But remember to take things one day at a time. Try to avoid sitting around thinking about all the responsibility that you might have in a few weeks/months or even years. Think about the here and now and do the best you can for today. Let tomorrow worry about itself and forget about the past. You can't change it anyway. You deserve the positive changes that have come into your life. Perhaps you are feeling like you don't deserve these things because you still have some of your addictive personality and are struggling with not being perfect all the time. I understand, I am there with you. But perfect is way over rated and to be honest, boring. If we were perfect all the time we wouldn't have any great stories or testimonies to tell about how we overcame difficulties and succeeded at some goal we worked really hard at. The struggles we face and overcome in life make us into stronger, wiser and more wonderful people. Try praying, meditating or reading the Bible once or twice a week. Psalm 139 is a wonderful book about how great we are to God! Focus on how far you have come, understand how far you have to go and plan to get there but don't let the fact that it is taking longer than you would like steal the joy that your success should give you. So I turned down the breakfast that was leftover...usually bagels, & other pastries, muffins. I ate my chicken and crackers instead. One positive choice made so far today. Make one positive choice today as well and celebrate it no matter how small you think it is. Thank you for sharing and letting me share as well. We are going to be alright. Hugs, Robin